FAMU's Shouppe hustles to beef up roster

TALLAHASSEE, Florida  --  Jamey Shouppe knew he was getting into the recruiting fray a little late to land players to fit the blueprint he outlined two weeks ago when he was named head baseball coach at FAMU.

He set out at warp speed anyway, realizing today would be the cutoff for signing the junior college players that he hoped would give a young Rattlers team some experience. As of Wednesday, he and his assistants were still frantically pushing to fill some of the team’s immediate needs.

The fact that several of the possible targets fell short of academic requirements has made it tough.

“It’s been impossible to basically fill all of our needs,” Shouppe said. “The unfortunate thing is at this stage there are less guys in the pool than we can choose, and (we have) to find the best players that are academically eligible.”

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